Leaders of 48 least developed countries, donor countries and institutions gather here Monday for a UN conference to discuss a new 10-year development plan for the world's poorest nations. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will chair the conference and among those attending will be Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso.
Ban, already in Istanbul, met Karzai on Sunday to discuss sustainable development in Afghanistan and developments in the Middle East and north Africa, particularly Libya, said a statement from the UN chief's office.
He had similar talks with Barroso, which also covered talks on the negotiations in ethnically divided Cyprus and political developments in Bosnia.
Ban met too with Nepal's Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal to discuss the peace process there following the end of the decade-long conflict between Maoist rebels and the state, in which at least 16,000 people died.
The Fourth United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDC) will last for five days. The LDC countries are defined as those with a per capita income of less than 745 dollars. The conference will also assess the Brussels Plan implemented over the previous 10 years to support the LDCs, said a UN statement.
Negotiators for the LDCs (33 in Africa, 14 in Asia plus Haiti) "are looking to put in place measures for building infrastructure to attain economic self-sufficiency, push back poverty and create decent jobs", the UN said.
"The most economically vulnerable countries in the world are looking for the world's larger economies to open up market access for LDC exports, to continue to increase development aid and better target it toward infrastructure and leveraging new investment, and to provide incentives for companies thinking of investing in LDCs," it added. The executive European Commission underlined its commitment to help the LDCs out of poverty in a statement Friday.
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